Ha Ke Nako

One of the many slogans for the World Cup is ‘Ke Nako’ meaning it’s time. And it was time, time for me to finish marking my exams, turn in my grades, pack my replaceable belongings, catch the opening match at the Katse Lodge, and then head to Johannesburg for four days and two games of World Cup action. The ticket process for the World Cup has been an emotional nightmare. I have kept you out of the World Cup drama loop for several reasons. Today I welcome you to the past six months of my life. Prepare yourself for the descent:

December 31, 2009: Volunteer R.X.P. gave a 30 minute presentation complete with visual aids on how to apply for World Cup tickets. We broke into groups of four and decided which matches we wanted to attend. FIFA instructed us to have ALL four people apply for tickets to seven different games, insuring you get tickets to at least one game.

January 7, 2010: This is the day we swore in as official PC volunteers and raced of to the Volunteer Resource Center (VRC) where we have access to four US Embassy computers. Once we become an official volunteer we can use the internet on these computers for free. It is also a lot safer to input credit card numbers on these computers than at the sketchy internet cafes used during training. They are rated up to “Sensitive, but Unclassified Information” Oh and the sessions last longer than 15 minutes.

February 14, 2010: Happy Valentines Day. Or not. Besides getting a phone call from A.L.R.L. I got a phone call (big sign something is terrible wrong as we can’t afford to make phone calls) from N.X.B. telling me we “won” 80 of the 84 tickets leaving us with a combined credit card bill of 13,000 US dollars.

Mid to Late February 2010: We spent at least 1000 Rand (approximately another 132 US dollars) calling and emailing FIFA to voice our concerns. How is it possible that we won 12 tickets to the same game? It’s 2010. One would assume FIFA’s lottery program would screen for that, after all our passport numbers were required for the ticket lottery. You know what they say when one assumes.

Late February 2010: After sitting with hefty credit card bills and new phone bills, thanks to the hard work of N.X.B. FIFA agreed to let us return 13 sets (four tickets per set) of tickets.

Late March: Living got slightly easier when the $10500 refunds appeared in our bank accounts. FIFA obviously took there sweet time with this. Still with six sets of tickets at a price tag of $2500 it was time to decide on what two games we were actually going to attend. We decided on Ghana vs. Germany and Brazil vs. Ivory Coast. Both of these games were being played at Soccer City in Johannesburg 3 days apart making logistics easy to work out.

Hostel Debacle: Due to the fact we waited so long to make reservations finding lodging in the city at an affordable rate was tough. We found a place where we were able to book a sweet B&B at a total of R7000 ($1750). It was more expensive than what we were looking for, but we were just happy to have a place to stay. As an added bonus, according to the website it was less than 9km from both stadiums in Jo’burg. It got even more exciting because another group of ED10 PCVs were also going to be staying at the same B&B for the second game. Making reservations at One Fontein B&B was not so simple, however. The total amount was supposed to be R7000 and the deposit 50% of the total for R3500. Due to some errors and dropped zeros by the secretary at the B&B, though, we only paid a deposit of R350. They later discovered their error and were ready to cancel our reservations unless we paid the outstanding R3150. Unfortunately, we were all on vacation in Durban when this part was working out so we didn’t know about it until very last minute and barely managed to save those reservations. We got lucky. For a little while.

At this point we thought we were all set and ready to go. Yes there was the issue of getting the FIFA refunds to go through and selling back the extra tickets. And the accommodations were pricier than expected, but we were getting to see two unbelievable games. Tragedy struck again early in May, however, when some clever sleuthing uncovered that our hostel was not actually in Johannesburg. Not even close. It was on the outskirts of Bloemfontein, in fact - a drive that would take a couple hours each way. This left us even closer to the games, still with nowhere to stay and having already shelled out R3500 deposit for a B&B in the wrong city. Desperate phone calls were made from both sides of the Atlantic looking for new places to stay. Finally, after a week or so of searching, we managed to find a specially built hostel for World Cup called Ball n’ Kicka. It was significantly lower class next to our gorgeous B&B, and significantly more expensive to boot with a 60% deposit of $850. But once again, we thought that was another bullet dodged and were just happy to be going. Our friends who were also homeless after the One Fontein B&B debacle even followed us to Ball n Kicka, so everything was working out all right. The only loose end to tie up was to get our deposit back from One Fontein.

April 11, 2010: We were able to put the four sets of tickets back into the lottery for resale. The only way to get rid of your tickets is to sell them back to FIFA and there was no guarantee they would actually sell. Oh AND once you agreed to sell the tickets you lost access to those tickets, even if they did not sell. Because that makes sense! We managed to sell the most expensive tickets to the worst games almost immediately so we felt like we were in the clear. For kicks, this is right when we found out about the hostel… there has not been a week of sanity since mid February.

June 12, 2010: K.A.B. and N.X.B. went to Bloemfontein to pick up the tickets because FIFA requires you to pick up your tickets in South Africa. Time and lines were not going to allow us to pick them up in Jo’burg the day of the games. Only when they showed up there were no tickets OR money. FIFA apparently resold all six sets of tickets, not just the four we returned. The money was apparently refunded in May, except there was no money in K.A.B.’s account to show for it. The best part is we were never informed about this decision FIFA made on our behalf.

Hostel Debacle Part 2: Conveniently, the 60% deposit on our hostel is unrefundable so we debated whether or not to still go to Jo’burg and bum around the fan parks. This is after looking into rebuying our tickets or simply finding other games to attend in the area. No such luck, all the tickets were sold out. We concluded hanging around would be super unsafe, a big waste of money (transport, food, and an additional $750 for lodging), and five vacation days swiped.

June 16, 2010: N.X.B. finds us tickets to the second round 1D vs 2C match in Bloemfontein. The price was way more than we wanted to pay for a game but at this point money seems obsolete. Right now, we are so deeply invested it would be ridiculous not to go to a game at all. Soccer may not be on the top of my list of sports to watch, but the World Cup is one of the biggest world sporting events (taking second to the Olympics I predict). And knowing how much I miss sports you can imagine how excited I was to be a part of this event. Now I will be part of the event and I have a good shot at seeing the USA play. With all that has gone wrong I am not crossing my fingers. Instead of living sports through the articles I receive via snail mail I am going to experience the action live. Sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade, only life does not always teach you how to make the lemonade.